wiki -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub_specie_aeternitatis
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Sub specie aeternitatis (Latin for "under the aspect of eternity"),[1] is, from Baruch Spinoza onwards, an honorific expression describing what is universally and eternally true, without any reference to or dependence upon the temporal portions of reality.

In clearer English, sub specie aeternitatis roughly means "from the perspective of the eternal". Even more loosely, the phrase is used to describe an alternative or objective point of view.
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If I fill a glass with water does not the first drop have as much to do with the glass of water as the last drop? And if the glass can never be filled, how can the full glass of water that's never there be more real than the partial glass of water that's always there?


PairTheBoard

Believing in one, without sufficient reason or evidence to do so, may be seen by many here, as simply wrong.

I'm in the same boat as you, but my ideas of God are more similar to Spinoza and Watts in - The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are - than anything that's ever discussed in RGT.

On a side note:

Interestingly, Heidegger is most often credited for the ontological topsy-turvy that is Being-In-The-World: the idea that even before "I think" there is - Being, as inseparable from - the World. Indeed, for the longest time in human history, philosophy has only ever seriously approached the subject of experience from the perspective of the subject/object duality.

To Heidegger, and later Sartre and the Existentialists, it is clear as day that without the World there is no Being and more interestingly, without Being there is no World. This dual ontology he did not invent however. Schopenhauer talked about it a whole century earlier. Poets have poeticised about it, at least forever.

A few more thoughts:

-When we are fully engaged in perceiving and acting on what is meaningful, then we experience the Universe/reality as meaningful rather than as indifferent. It is only after we experience failure, resistance, or suffering that we encounter the Absurd.

-This is where free will comes in. We have a choice to decide between two options: that reality is meaningless, which is what the intellect tells us, or to maintain that reality is meaningful and that our failure/suffering can be overcome if we extend ourselves more than we previously have.

-This second option is an intuitive feeling, so communicating it requires some subjective interpretation. I also interpret it as ‘how much do you care’. Is it enough to extend yourself further and be willing to sacrifice more? If so, then we can continue on and reality is still meaningful.

-Well, there is a third option, which is to maintain that reality is meaningful but to not change our approach at all. That is a form of denial/delusion and is the weakest position of the three.

-This choice doesn’t seem to be found in Camus’ philosophy. It might be fair to say that this decision point, this fork, is the separator of philosophy and religion. It’s the decision point between coping and curing, between the known and the unknown, between practicality and Faith.

-We would be better off at least knowing it exists though. That in between experiencing the resistance to getting what we want and acting on the intellectual response, there is a stillness at an intuitive level. In that stillness, there is free will.

Then they would of course have to justify and universalize that requirement with evidence, which is tautological. Some things are intuitive, or properly basic, or self-evident. Theism falls under the same category, for some, as strongly as the self-evidence of realness of a scientists observations.

All I'm saying is the question is open for debate, and attaching descriptive words to thiesm such as 'analgesic' or 'cathartic' is totally subjective and unfounded. For some people belief in God bears a great burden; it's not just a way out of existential despair, though it might be as well.

Camus was honest enough to include it in the list of possible explanations of apparent 'absurdism,' but he errs here.

Great post. Thanks for your thoughts.
Not all scientists and philosophers prescribe to foundationalism and the idea of basic beliefs.

Importantly I refer to Derrida, Rorty and Davidson's critique - only a belief can be a reason for another belief.
In the case of Camus and many other thinkers who have put forth their own (and rather influential) philosophical viewpoints, I would not so easily consider their descriptions as unfounded. We may disagree with them but they're not necessarily unfounded.

He's adding qualities such as 'analgesic' to simple beliefs. Of course theism is analgesic to some, but theism itself is improperly described as an 'analgesic,' because it isn't an analgesic to everyone. One can duly imagine someone who believes strongly that God exists but is extremely perturbed and devastated that such is the case, perhaps because it creates obligations for him or restricts his pure moral freedom. Camus is correct in identifying theism as a possible explanation for the absurd, but incorrect in qualifying it as a belief of a particular sort. He does this because he strongly believes that God does not exist and that theism is untrue, and so reckons it is philosophical suicide to believe such, since philosophy is the mechanism by which he dispensed with theism in the first place. This is of course rather circular and presumptive.

Conversely, his notion of resisting the absurd by defiance always struck me as breathless, because it's puffing oneself up in the face of total hopelessness. Doing so does nothing to eliminate the predicament he finds himself in beyond some emotional reprieve. He almost insinuates that one can transcend the absurd by an act of will. If that were true, then reality isn't absurd after all---it is transcendable.

Theism may be properly described as an analgesic. It may just be that it's not yet recognised as such. Belief in the benefits of squeezing goats testicles was once described - superstitious and childish - by the few. Later, it was recognised as such, by the many.

I don't have this interpretation. He doesn't see it as a form of transcendence. Rather, as an act of free will.

I don’t know why our lives ought to seem non-futile when viewed objectively just because they appear non-futile when we’re in the subjective mode. What’s the justification for that ought?

Especially when that "objective" view is being manufactured in our imaginations and subject to our metaphoric landscape's geography of logic that we've developed for coping with our experience. It's a rather subjective objective view.


PairTheBoard

No, it can't. It's an overgeneralization that he makes based upon what he thinks. Camus is well known not for philosophical rigor but for merely expressing his opinions on the matter (thought they are eloquent and intelligent). The fact that you agree with him does not make it so.

Something akin is me calling atheism rational or rebellious. It clearly is one, or another, or both, depending on the person who holds it. But it can be neither as well.

What do you mean by ought? Like a moral imperative or? I wouldn't think that Camus believes in oughts. When he says - approximate a solution - he doesn't intend his suggestions to be taken as some sort of oughts that work for everyone.
I'm not sure what you mean by philosophical rigour. If you're referring to the misguided school of analytic philosophy, as the traditional pin up boy of rigour, then I respectfully disagree, again.

Nagel thinks the absurd arises because of the contrast between our having to take life seriously, which he thinks is unavoidable, and our realization that there is no good reason to take life seriously.

This is a good interpretation.

I always strive to take it less seriously. Unless of course, im pleasuring a woman. As a smart pirate in game of thrones once said: the only God is the one between a woman's legs. Or man's, if you swing that way.

It seems to me that the phrase "take life seriously" is carrying two somewhat different meanings above. In the sense of "our having to take life seriously" I think there are good reasons to do so. On the other hand, I'm not sure there are serious reasons why the sense, "there is no good reason to take life seriously", makes sense.

How can you say, "there is no good reason to take life seriously" with a straight face?


PairTheBoard

You don't say it with a straight face. Straight faces are reserved for those that take it seriously.

Does the Joker say it with a straight face or a smile?

"Why so serious?"

The need for a solution presupposes a problem. The problem, as Camus sees it, is that when we reflect on the state-of-affairs of the world our expectations for meaning and purpose aren’t met. In other words, there’s something wrong with the world and we can’t do anything about it other than cope through various means. My question is why should we expect to find meaning and purpose when we reflect upon things just because meaning and purpose are present when we’re acting?

It sounds to me just what PairTheBoard alluded to: we’re subjectifying the objective view. In the subjective mode, we’re agents to whom the world appears and we act upon things in that world. In the objective mode, we conceive of ourselves as an object being acted upon by all the other objects throughout time and space. Those are divergent views, from which, I don’t see any reason why we should expect to find similarities or should apply similar measures. To me it’s like asking why a lemon doesn’t look sour or taste yellow. Why should it?

Right. But he also thinks it's our ability to transcend ourselves that gives rise to that realization. I know we can put the words together to say we're transcending ourselves, I just don't know if we can genuinely do it.

I once got a hold of J.D. Salinger's book of short stories. I read them and was quite disappointed. I thought, "Where's the story? There's no story to them." They seemed more like snap shots to me. No real beginning, no plot, and no ending. There seemed to be no point to them. Yet one of the stories was lauded by critics as being the "perfect" short story.

That may be what it's like when we imagine the story of reality from a god's eye view. Maybe we're reading the wrong story. Or, maybe we're reading the story wrong.


PairTheBoard

Maybe the story is uncertain and depends on our actions. Asking what this story is all about is perhaps the wrong question. Or rather, the question is fine but our attempting to answer it conclusively may not be optimal.

We all have a pretty good idea of what life is like when we act as if it is meaningless. What does life become when we continue to double down (in action) on the idea that life is meaningful while being 100% committed to being truthful? The former forces us to persist and the loyalty to truth forces us to change. Those two in combo with maximum will power are where it's at.

What does "transcend ourselves" mean?

To view ourselves and the rest of the world sub specie aeternitatis. Like looking at yourself in the third person.

Good question.

To Camus, as far as I understand, it is not a question of whether we should or should not have the expectation of a meaningful world. A world in which our actions and our suffering have grander purpose, or even - any objective purpose at all.

To Camus, it is a given that all human beings naturally have a tendency to seek this out throughout their lives. Especially so, in times of difficulty and times of suffering, as pointed out by Craig. Even more so, in times of unnecessary suffering. In such times, it appears as if there may indeed be a purpose, and that purpose may be to suffer.

Thus Camus does not ask - should we have this expectation. He takes it as a given that we all do. Not all the time in our lives of course. But throughout our lives, whenever we take the opportunity to truly reflect.

If you disagree with this proposition, so fundamental to his writings and the writings of many associated authors, such as Dostoyevsky in particular, then Existentialism may not be for you.

This is a very good point.

Watts makes similar arguments, noting that if you were God, and you had all of creation at your fingertips, you'd have nothing to do but experience yourself from every possible perspective. This would involve purposely - getting lost within yourself: living a life of suffering or meaninglessness perhaps; a life so far divorced from ever having the thought -I'm God. Very strange justification for unnecessary suffering perhaps, but I know of few authors who've had the balls to genuinely attempt to tackle this, in the face of what I would imagine would be incessant ridicule by one's peers.

If true, perhaps this explains that general Faith one has - to which you refer earlier. Perhaps somewhere deep down, we have some sense of knowing that - all is OK.